


To Call Your Heart Home

by commoncomitatus



Category: The New Legends of Monkey (TV)
Genre: Background Polyamory, Comfort Sex, Established Relationship, F/F, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 08:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15793284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: Future!Fic.  In which Tripitaka finds comfort in intimacy and Sandy finds intimacy in comfort.





	To Call Your Heart Home

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings  
> 1) This fic is set in a future OT4 scenario, wherein our heroes are together in a comfortable, established four-way relationship; this is referenced several times throughout, but only as contextual background, so read or skip per your preferences.  
> 2) This fic also contains minor breathplay / consensual choking in a sexual situation and discussion thereof; again, read on or slam the back-button, whichever your tastes or squicks dictate.
> 
> Other Notes  
> Apologies, as ever, for filling the fandom tag with my ridiculously rare character and ship preferences. This is my first venture from gen to full-on shipfic in this fandom, so apologies if it reads poorly or inappropriately. Plus I have no idea how ship-tag-making protocol works, so apologies if I did that wrong too. Apologies all around, basically.

***

_Safe_.

Once, long ago, that was the only word Tripitaka needed to know. A lifetime past, a new identity come and gone, so distant and so far away she can barely remember it any more. But so it was: safety and sanctuary, her home, her family, her whole world. So pure and so complete that she couldn’t imagine a life without it.

Then the demons came and everything changed. In a flash, a moment that seemed to last forever, her home and her family were destroyed, the only world she’d ever known obliterated before her eyes. And for a long time after that, _safe_ was just one of those things that happened to other people.

Now, a lifetime later, she’s somewhere in between. A little softer than the grief and loss and pain she carried around for so long, a world and a life that fits a little more comfortably than stolen clothes or a stolen name.

Now the name is hers by choice; now she wears a monk’s robes because she wants to. Now, at long last, she has a home again, a sanctuary that is hers, that is everywhere and everything. She might not be truly safe, any more than anything in the world is safe any more, but most of the time she feels close enough to pretend.

She got good at pretending a long time ago. She hasn’t needed to do that in a long, long time, but sometimes it makes things easier.

She has a family again too, new and old at the same time, and she’s still not sure how she’s supposed to feel about that. Guilty, a little bit, ashamed that the one she lost could be replaced so quickly and so easily. She feels that way sometimes, but not as much as she probably should. If there’s one thing the Scholar taught her well, it’s to never regret the things she has. It doesn’t make the loss mean less, to find new meaning in something else; it just adds a little more, something all its own.

And so she relishes what she has now, never forgetting what she had before. A new family, completely different. She is older now, wiser and more experienced, and the world is not safe like it was when she was a child under the Scholar’s protection. So much has changed since then; she tells herself it stands to reason that the meaning of ‘family’ would change as well.

Family, _her_ family, is love and warmth and the deepest intimacy. It is four people on completely different journeys all walking the same path; it is shared experiences and shared pain, shared blankets and shared heat. It is shared—

 _Everything_.

It is Monkey, bruised and bloodied, limping back to camp after a fight he refused to lose. It is Pigsy sighing and shaking his head as he patches him up, letting his touches linger just a heartbeat longer than necessary. It is Tripitaka smiling slyly, knowing when to move away and when to move closer. It is Sandy watching from a distance, sometimes shy, sometimes uncomfortable, but always utterly devoted.

It is good food and bad decisions, good sex and bad positions.

It is being together and feeling warm and loved and utterly safe.

And sometimes it is being together and not feeling safe at all.

*

She wakes in the middle of the night, a nightmare’s scream clinging to the back of her throat.

It’s nothing new. No-one can go through what she has, what they all have, and not have the occasional bad dream.

They each have their own private demons, ghosts in their heads that only come out at night. Tripitaka can’t count how many times she’s been woken by Monkey’s thrashing or Pigsy’s panicked grunts. She’s lost count of the times she’s had to comfort them, and the times they’ve had to comfort her in turn, the heat from their bodies soothing her until she can sleep again, her fingertips stilling their tremors until they can follow behind.

Give and take, comfort and compassion on all sides. That’s how things have always worked for them.

She assumes she’s alone tonight. Pigsy’s snoring cuts through the air like a razor, and Monkey is sprawled out in his usual manner, taking up as much space as he possibly can. They’re both fast asleep, oblivious to the shuddering whimpers still lodged under her tongue. Tripitaka can’t decide whether to be disappointed by their silence or relieved that she didn’t wake them.

Then she looks up and sees Sandy sitting by the fire, soundless as a shadow.

It would be too easy to assume she’s standing guard, keeping an eye out for lurking threats as she so often does. Sandy has always been the lightest sleeper among them, so accustomed to living her life in the dead of night; she is often awake long after the others drift off, keeping them safe and watching over them before surrendering to sleep herself. It’s such a common occurrence, they take it for granted.

Not tonight, though. Tripitaka doesn’t need to see the tracks of tears still fresh on her face, gleaming silver in the firelight, to know that that’s not what’s happening now.

They all have nightmares. This is known, an open secret between them; none of them are immune to old horrors, to the scars left by experience and memory.

Tripitaka has a sneaking suspicion that she knows more about Sandy’s nightmares than Sandy does. Sandy barely remembers anything, real or otherwise, and she has little awareness on waking of the things she shouts and sobs in her sleep. Maybe that’s a mercy, maybe it’s not; Tripitaka wonders if it’s even possible to make peace with memories she can only touch in dreams.

She knows this much about Sandy’s nightmares, has learned it again and again and again: when she wakes with tears on her face, she was very, very young. A child, abandoned by her only family, left by the side of the road like she was never worth anything more. Even if she hadn’t heard her whimpering in her sleep, Tripitaka would know that much; Sandy told her once, how she cried until there was nothing left. Now she only cries when she remembers.

Tripitaka cries in her sleep sometimes too, but never when she dreams of that. Abandonment means something different to her, and so does being young. She never cried as a baby, and very rarely as a child; it was only after she’d become a woman, when she looked around and experienced all the pain the Scholar and his monks had kept hidden, that the tears began to flow.

When she cries, she remembers cradling the Scholar’s lifeless body in her arms. She remembers holding Monkey as he fell ever deeper into his own memories, remembers watching as Davari hurled an innocent god to his death because of her. When she cries in her dreams, the suffering she sees is never her own, and her tears are hot with grief and pain and loss.

When Sandy cries, she shivers and touches the tears on her face like she doesn’t really understand what they are.

She’s shivering now, in spite of the fire, but the tears are still untouched; she can’t have been awake very much longer than Tripitaka. Knowing her, it’s possible she’s still half-asleep.

Tripitaka inches a little closer to the fire, makes a show of warming her hands. Sandy does not take kindly to having her personal space breached, even after all this time as part of a family as intimate as theirs. Contact of any kind is still very difficult for her, and never more than physically. Tripitaka knows to take it slow with her, and she announces her presence with a casual sort of cough.

Sandy doesn’t look up. “Were you having a nightmare, Tripitaka?”

Straight to the point; she’d expect nothing less. “I guess I was.”

It’s not really a guess, of course. For all the intimacy between them, between all of them, it’s still a challenge sometimes to confess things like this, to be honest about her fears and not feel ashamed. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

Sandy nods, mostly to herself.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She touches her face, traces the tear-tracks as though finding them for the first time, and frowns. “Apparently you’re not alone.”

“You don’t remember?”

She knows the answer, of course, but Sandy still takes a moment to mull it over. A longer moment than usual this time, it seems.

“No.” She says it quietly, like she’s only half-aware of the word’s meaning. “I think I must have been cold.”

“That’s all?” It’s an odd thing to latch onto, but that’s Sandy all over. “Just cold?”

“Must have been.” She doesn’t sound especially sure, though. She pokes at the fire with a stick, and shivers some more, as though reaffirming the sensation. “Why else would I be here?”

Tripitaka finds a smile. This is not the first time they’ve done this.

“Maybe you needed some comfort?” She shifts a little closer. “I know I need it sometimes, after a nightmare.”

It’s not exactly subtle, but then she doesn’t need it to be. Even if they hadn’t been here before, they’re far beyond the point of subtlety, all four of them.

Sandy looks up at last, studies Tripitaka thoughtfully. She doesn’t look like she’s fully back to herself yet, head cocked to one side, eyes still a little unfocused. Maybe this is why she sleeps so lightly most of the time; it takes her a lifetime to come back to herself when she does. It’s like her mind, cracked as it is, doesn’t know what to do with itself, like it can’t process sleep any more efficiently than it can process memory. It must be a strange, confusing place, the inside of Sandy’s head.

After a long, quiet beat, she says, “What were you dreaming?”

Tripitaka sighs. She wonders if she could get away with ‘I don’t remember’ as well. Somehow, she doubts it.

“I was back at the monastery,” she says. That’s probably all the explanation needed, but she keeps going anyway; if nothing else, the time it takes to tell the tale might help Sandy to wake up a little more. “Watching it get destroyed. My home, my family, the Scholar. Everything I’d ever known, everyone I’d ever loved. All of it. Just... gone. And there was nothing I could do about it.”

Saying the words, she feels it all over again. The chill in the air, the raw, broken feeling in her heart, her lungs, her bones. She’s relived that moment a hundred times since it happened, a thousand times, and it never gets any easier. Even now, awake and aware and herself, looking around at her new family, her new home, her new world, looking around and knowing how proud the Scholar would be if he could see her... even knowing that things turned out they way they needed to, still it’s a scar she’ll always carry.

Sandy swallows, looking a bit uncomfortable, then she reaches out and takes Tripitaka’s hand in hers. She really is cold, Tripitaka realises with a start; her skin feels like ice against her own.

“I’m sorry,” Sandy says, with her usual softness. “I’m sorry you have to go through that again and again. I’m sorry it’s still with you.”

She looks down at their hands, then jolts and pulls away, frowning like she has no idea how hers ended up there.

Tripitaka flexes her fingers, missing the contact already. “I don’t know if it’s something to be sorry for,” she muses. It’s true, however much it still hurts. “I’d rather keep it with me than lose the part of me that cared.”

“Understandable.” She ponders that for a few moments, then touches her face again. The salt-stains shimmer in the firelight, silver one moment and yellow the next. “What do you suppose I...?”

She stops, though, before she can finish the question, like maybe a part of her doesn’t really want to know.

Tripitaka opens her mouth to say she doesn’t know — it’s the easiest answer, she knows, for both of them — but she stops herself before she can get the words out. Intimacy comes in many forms, she’s learned, and this one runs very, very deep.

“I think you were young,” she says. She looks at the tears, swallowing as Sandy scrubs them away, and feels a similar sting start up behind her own eyes. “You only cry when you’re young.”

“Do I?” She shivers again, then wraps her arms around herself like she’s trying to keep the chill inside. “I must have been dreadfully cold. I can’t seem to get warm.”

Tripitaka waits a moment, studying Sandy’s face very closely. She’s fairly certain it’s an invitation, but it’s not always easy to tell for sure; sometimes Sandy doesn’t seem to really know herself. She’s often confused, sometimes vulnerable, and it is always such a delicate challenge to approach her like this. She’s not like the others, like Monkey who always states his intentions as graphically as possible or Pigsy who simply shrugs and smiles and acts.

Sandy does neither of those things. She keeps her distance, even during the most intimate moments, and she watches far more than she ever participates. She writes poetry while the others get undressed, keeps herself apart, and only rarely gets close enough to join in. When they do this, the two of them together, Tripitaka is careful in a way she never needs to be with the others.

She’s careful now, too, before they even start. She moves a little closer, but keeps it slow, steady, _slow_.

“I think...” she starts, and doesn’t finish.

“Yes.” Sandy is staring at Tripitaka’s mouth; she wets her lips, curious and unsteady but sort of hopeful. “You said you wanted... comfort?”

All right, then. Definitely an invitation. And so Tripitaka gives up on slow.

She moves in closer, then closer still, too casual and still a little careful, closer and closer until they’re sitting side-by-side, until her palm is resting on Sandy’s thigh, until Sandy’s eyes are devouring the corners of her lips, until the backs of her fingers, still terribly cold, are feathering touches across the curve of her jaw, until—

Until Tripitaka can taste the chill on Sandy’s tongue as well, until she leans in and cups her face and chases it away.

Sandy’s whimpers are delicate, fluttering things; they vibrate against the roof of Tripitaka’s mouth, thrum like music all through her nerves. They make her ache and yearn and _want_ , make her think of other nights like this, of comfort from nightmares and all the myriad forms it takes, Monkey and Pigsy and sometimes the two of them together, and then this, _Sandy_ , the rarest and the quietest.

She pulls away, pupils blown in the firelight, smitten and sweet and so full of wonder, and she traces Tripitaka’s lips with her fingertips until Tripitaka is sure the contact will drive her mad. And her expression is open and eager and just a little bit vulnerable, her lips kiss-bruised and wet, and she looks so _hopeful_.

“I want to...”

Tripitaka hushes her with a thumb pressed to the edge of her mouth, and she kisses her again, slow and sort of endless, and breathes, “You do, you always do.”

Sandy makes a sound that might be another whimper or possibly a moan, and she turns her head a little, gasping like she’s already overwhelmed; her cheek is cold against Tripitaka’s, long lashes tickling her skin, still a little wet, and she is clinging to her for dear life, one hand gripping the back of Tripitaka’s neck, the other at her hip, holding on just a little too tight, a little too desperate.

“I’m here,” she whispers, and for a moment Tripitaka isn’t sure which one of them she’s speaking to. “I’m here, you’re here, I’m here, no more nightmares, no more...”

The words rock her a little, sharp and soft at the same time, a reminder of why they’re here, why they’re doing this, the comfort that comes with contact, with being grounded and present and alive.

It’s not like with the others, raw physicality and hot passion and pure power, motion and moaning and nothing else until it’s over; they know what they need and they take it, and Tripitaka appreciates that so, so much. But Sandy doesn’t know what she needs until she has it, and she doesn’t know what Tripitaka needs until she’s taken it, and so she has to sound it all out, feel her way through, blind and confused and so desperate to be good enough. And it is so deliciously sweet, but sometimes it stings a little too.

So Tripitaka pushes her down, gentle but strong, and she kisses her until she’s quiet, and she holds her own body above hers until Sandy comes back to herself slightly, until she looks up, until their eyes meet and she chokes on her adoration.

“You are _everything_ , Tripitaka.” Her voice trembles. “The world, the stars...”

Tripitaka bows her head, leans in until she can see all that, the stars, the world, everything in it and beyond, all reflected in Sandy’s face, the golden glow of firelight and the pale water of her eyes and all her endless, eternal love.

Tears sting behind her eyes again, grief and the shadows of her nightmare, the memories that made it all too real. Grief, yes, and heat as well, the echo of what she lost thrumming through her heart, catching the rhythm of her passion, her wants, her needs.

“Show me,” she rasps, hoarse and aching. “Show me we’re here, show me we’re everything.”

Sandy lifts herself up, trails kisses down the line of Tripitaka’s throat, finds her pulse with her teeth. “Not _we_ ,” she says breathlessly. “ _You_.”

And her fingers fumble and flail and find Tripitaka’s belt.

It’s no struggle at all, slipping out of her monk’s robes. It was once, long ago, when the robes and her body were wrong for each other, the clothes an ill-fitting lie to cover the shameful truth. But those days are long gone now, and she wears them well, on or off. Just another part of who she is, the name and the life that is hers, at last, by choice. She can no longer imagine herself any other way.

The firelight warms her skin, throws light and shadow against each other, orange-tinged and glowing. Sandy gazes up at her with wide eyes, face framed by the tangle of her hair; she’s shaking with devotion, with love, with a kind of worship that is really only hers, awestruck and stammering, speechless like she always is when she sees Tripitaka exposed.

“You...” she starts, and Tripitaka silences her again with frenzied kisses and wandering hands, callouses catching in tattered fabric, tripping over tears and rips and buckles.

Sandy’s clothing is a lot like her mind, a mess and a maze that makes sense to no-one, least of all herself. Tripitaka still doesn’t really understand how the pieces all fit together, and uncovering her is like unravelling something dangerous and delicate, a creature with sharp claws wrapped in water. Sandy struggles against her own body as Tripitaka undresses her, flinching away from her touches nearly as often as she arches into them, steadied only by the press of warm lips to newly-exposed skin.

She rolls away when it’s done, fingers clenching in the grass to keep from covering herself, an old, old reflex she’s never fully lost, and Tripitaka sighs as her eyes fall on Monkey’s sleeping form, as she starts to shiver all over again.

She gives her a moment, then squeezes her hand. “They’ve seen it all before,” she points out gently, “a thousand times.”

“I...” But it still takes a moment for her to really remember. “Yes.”

And she pulls Tripitaka’s body up until she covers her like a shroud.

For a time, then, there’s nothing but quiet, stifled murmurs and moans, Tripitaka’s body igniting under — _over_ — Sandy’s hands and mouth. She kisses her, touches her, worships her everywhere, not with passion or hunger or any of the things Tripitaka values in the others, but with something that’s all hers, with devotion and reverence; she kisses her, touches her, worships her like there is nobody else in the world, like there never was and never will be.

It’s a kind of intimacy all its own, and it is much too easy for Tripitaka to close her eyes and surrender, to let herself imagine, maybe even believe, that she is all the things Sandy sees in her, the things she’s always seen in her, from the moment they first met. It’s been a long time since Tripitaka needed validation for any of the things she’s done, but sometimes — in the lingering shadows of nightmares like this — it is a blessed, beautiful reminder that she is more than the pain she endured to get here.

And then Sandy’s hands are on her hips, fingers splayed and still too cold, and her mouth is pressed up against her, slack and a whole lot warmer, and she looks up at her with such longing, and she breathes the name into her, _“Tripitaka,”_ over and over again until it becomes a part of her body.

And Tripitaka remembers how that name fit on Sandy’s tongue long before it ever fit on her own, long before it fit on anyone else’s, even Monkey’s. And she lets her eyes slide shut, and she lets it wash over her, the high little tremors in Sandy’s voice, the syllables shuddering against her skin.

She builds quickly, almost too quickly. Back bowed, head hanging down, body braced on her forearms, she feels open and exposed and so perfect. Sandy is calm and quiet beneath her, like a still lake holding her afloat, and her hands are strong and her lips are shaped in a sort of prayer, whispering worship, and her tongue glides like water on glass, up and down, across and over and _inside_ , until Tripitaka has to turn her head, muffling her cries in the crook of her elbow.

Her climax rolls over her like a wave, like a storm, clean and wet and overpowering. It takes her in and swallows her whole, and for an endless, glorious moment there is nothing else at all, no pain or fear or nightmares, no middle-of-the-night tears or traumas or old still-raw wounds. Nothing. Just this, just pleasure and pleasure and _pleasure_.

And when it’s over, when her strength gives out and she falls forward, Sandy catches her and holds her and keeps her from hitting the ground, cold hands soothing hot skin, wet kisses leaving tracks across the curve of her hip, her side, her ribs.

For once, Sandy doesn’t speak. But when Tripitaka looks down to meet her eyes, they’re glowing, orange in the firelight and white in the moonlight, ethereal and impossible and so bright that Tripitaka can see herself in them, flushed and sated and safe.

She sits up a little when she’s come back to herself. And she cups Sandy’s cheek with as much reverence as she has — not quite as much as Sandy has, but enough — and kisses her as deeply as she can while still a little breathless. Briefly, fleetingly, she tastes herself, the lingering ghost of release, of pleasure, of being loved.

Her reflection is distorted when they pull apart, moisture trembling like tears in Sandy’s eyes. She blinks a couple of times, rapidly, and her breath is stuttering and shallow.

“Comfort,” she says, like she’s tasting the word for the first time. “Really?”

Tripitaka smiles, lazy and still light-headed. “Really,” she says.

She looks down, takes in the way Sandy’s body shifts and moves, the rise and fall of her chest, the flexing of her stomach; she’s biting her lip, pressing her thighs together, and it is such a rare and precious thing to see her so utterly ruined, so eager and wanting, and honest about it. She rarely lets her arousal show, rarely lets any part of her show at all; Tripitaka recognises a gift when it’s given, and she takes great care in receiving it, in touching her with feather-light fingertips and butterfly kisses.

“I don’t...” Sandy wets her lips; her voice breaks. “I don’t know that I need comfort, Tripitaka. I don’t remember...”

But her eyes are still very wet, and Tripitaka wonders if maybe she remembers more than she wants to admit.

Tripitaka stills her hands, looks up and tries to read her expression. “If you want to just go back to sleep, that’s—”

“No.” It’s a little sharp, a little too clean. “Don’t want any more of that. Had enough for a lifetime.” This, apparently, she remembers quite well. “Could you...?”

She hesitates, biting her lip again and looking very shy.

Tripitaka leans back a little, gives her space to process what she’s thinking. This is not new, nor really unexpected; Sandy’s body might be making its desires crystal-clear, but in this as in everything else her mind needs a little time to catch up and make sense of it all. They’ve all learned to just sit back and let it happen, let her work through it as chaotically as she needs, feel out her feelings and think through her thoughts until they make some kind of sense, even if it’s only to herself.

“Anything,” Tripitaka says, for the first time and the hundredth.

“Good.” And just like that, the hesitation is over. She moves again, with urgency now, hauling Tripitaka back up, and her body arches and lifts to meet her, cold skin shivering against hot. “Good, yes, please.”

Tripitaka opens her mouth to say _‘yes, anything’_ , but Sandy pulls her into a kiss before she can get any sound out at all; there’s no fierceness in her, no more desire than what Tripitaka feels quivering in her body, in their bodies pressed so tightly together. But she kisses her like she’s choking, like she’s starved of something more than just passion, and when she pulls away her pupils are blown and her mouth is half-open and she looks so wrecked, so overwhelmed.

She takes Tripitaka’s hands, then, thin fingers circling thin wrists, and she moves her, guides her, telling her what to do — for once — without words. One hand in constant motion, ebbing and flowing like the tide she loves so much, tripping and dancing across her collarbones, then down, _down_ , past the curve of her breasts, the jutting lines of her ribs, the flat plane of her belly, pressing lower, and lower, until Tripitaka is shuddering too, until the contact makes them both cry out.

One hand, yes, in constant motion. The other—

The other, she brings _up_.

Tripitaka doesn’t often flinch during moments like this. She flatters herself that being intimate with three very different gods has left her immune to most things; even some of Monkey’s more exotic appetites leave her unfazed these days. But when Sandy tugs Tripitaka’s hand up to cover her _throat_ , when she presses down on her fingers until they _tighten_ , when she looks up at her with wide eyes and suddenly strangled breath... oh, yes, she flinches.

Wide-eyed, confused and a little afraid, she says, “Are you...?”

“Yes.” Her voice is strangled too. Tripitaka can feel the word straining to make its way past her fingers; it is alarmingly intimate. “Yes, please.”

Tripitaka doesn’t ask why. That’s another thing she’s learned from being intimate with three gods, and specifically three gods prone to nightmares. There will be time enough to talk about it later, if that’s something Sandy wants to do. And if she doesn’t, well, it’s hers to keep.

For now, though, Tripitaka simply does what she’s asked. Holds, firm but gentle, feels the staccato rhythm of Sandy’s breathing under her fingers, feels her swallowing, gasping, feels her throat constrict, feels _everything_. Moves her other hand, firm and not very gentle at all, and adjusts to the responses she feels there too.

Sandy’s body isn’t quite as easy to read as Monkey’s or Pigsy’s, even when she’s aching and wanting, and they do this so rarely that Tripitaka doubts she’d speak its language fluently even if it was. But some things are universal, and the hitch of her hips and the slickness around Tripitaka’s hand tell her everything she needs to know. _More, less, no, yes, yes, yes..._

It is enough. Enough to recognise the signs that she’s close, enough to brace for the moment it happens, for the shudders and the shivers, for the sudden spasms clenching around one hand and the strangled wail struggling against the other.

She stays where she is, even after it’s over. Even when Sandy is still and steady again, when her breathing has grown slower under Tripitaka’s fingers, when her body has stopped seizing around her other hand, still she keeps them both in place, the one at her throat and the one much, much lower. And she bows her head and kisses Sandy’s jaw and cheek until she comes back to herself and looks up at her, smiling and shaking just a little, and—

And only then does Tripitaka see that the tears on her face are fresh.

She takes her hands back, both of them, very quickly after that.

“That...” Her voice hitches; she tries to steady it. “That’s... new.”

She’s not sure which she’s really talking about: the memory of her fingers wrapped too tightly around Sandy’s throat or the sight of her face in the firelight now, glittering with fresh tears. They’re both new, and though they’ve been too intimate too long for Tripitaka to feel truly unsettled by anything, still her heart skips a beat.

Sandy sits up slowly, touches her face with an odd, contemplative frown.

“I suppose it is,” she says, speaking mostly to herself.

Tripitaka takes a deep, sobering breath. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Sandy doesn’t answer that for while. The thoughtful look doesn’t fade from her face, and Tripitaka doesn’t try to push her for a response; they stand and dress in harmony, and neither of them say anything at all.

It’s comfortable, the act of dressing, lazy and casual, with no fear of exposure or shame. In its own way it feels almost as intimate as the sex; Monkey and Pigsy are still asleep, but even if they weren’t there would be no hurry to cover or explain themselves, no reason to hide from others who have shared a million moments just like this. _Safe_ is still a relative term with the way they live, but they’re as close to it here as they could ever hope to be.

When she’s dressed, Tripitaka sits by the fire, basking in the hazy yellow-orange glow; she watches, wordless and patient, as Sandy picks up a blanket and brings it to her side.

“May I?”

Tripitaka shrugs her permission. She doesn’t really need the warmth, but she relishes the gentle, caring way Sandy wraps it around her shoulders, the way she settles in beside her, hands folded quietly in her lap. She’s not really physical like Monkey, not a natural nurturer like Pigsy, but she tries so hard to do what she thinks they would do in her place; Tripitaka appreciates the effort, and is tactful enough not to point out that she was never actually cold.

“Thank you,” she says instead, and means it for a thousand other reasons.

“Mm.” She studies her hands for a few moments, chewing her lip, then mumbles, “I lied to you before.”

Tripitaka is slightly thrown by that. That’s new too: Sandy never lies to anyone. She has an almost preternatural talent for sensing dishonesty, and always assumes — wrongly, most of the time — that she is as transparent to other people as they are to her. She has no idea how elusive she is, how impossible to read, and so she acts like an open book.

Tripitaka keeps her surprise mostly to herself, though, and hopes she doesn’t look too hurt when she says, “About what?”

“Said I didn’t remember.” She keeps her head down like she’s ashamed of herself, like she really believes Tripitaka would judge her for wanting to keep her nightmares private. “But I did. Do. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” Tripitaka rests a gentle hand on her thigh; it doesn’t feel any less intimate through the barrier of her clothes than it did when they were naked. “You know you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. It’s okay if you’d rather keep your nightmares to yourself.”

Sandy flinches a little. Tripitaka takes her hand back, though it doesn’t seem to make her less uncomfortable. She doesn’t understand at first, but then Sandy sucks in a deep, rasping breath, hides her face behind her hair and blurts out—

“Wasn’t a nightmare.”

Tripitaka blinks. At this point in their journey, she’s almost never surprised by anything her gods do or say, but this one throws her for a loop. “Huh?”

“Suppose I lied about that too.” She’s flushing furiously now, at least as much as her skin can muster, deep enough that her usual pallour looks almost healthy. “Sorry again.”

“Stop apologising!” It comes out much sharper than she means it to, like maybe she’s a little hurt anyway, in spite of herself. “I mean... I’m not sure I understand.”

“Wasn’t a nightmare,” Sandy says again, slower this time. “But I let you think it was. Not so complicated, really.”

It doesn’t bring any more clarity, hearing it repeated, and Tripitaka doesn’t bother pretending it does.

“No,” she says. “No, you were _crying_. When I woke up, you were crying.” She’s speaking very slowly, carefully, trying to piece together what she saw, trying to reconcile it with what she’s hearing now. “You only cry when you’re...”

“Yes. You say that often. I only cry when I’m young. I only cry when when I have nightmares about...” Her shoulders shake; Tripitaka wraps an arm around her, careful and compassionate. “...about being _abandoned_.”

“I say that because it’s true.” She doesn’t say how she knows that, doesn’t mention the way Sandy talks in her sleep, the things she says, the stories she tells without even realising it. “Sandy, we’ve known each other a very long time.”

“Yes.”

Her breathing is a little shaky. She looks down at her hands, lifts them slowly until they circle her throat like Tripitaka’s fingers did before, tight as a collar, like a string pulled taut, a necklace of bones twisted into a garrote. Tripitaka wants to reach out, wants to take them away and hold them until they stop twitching, but it’s not her place to take this from her. Whatever _this_ is.

“Sandy,” she whispers.

Sandy sighs, nods.

“I was dreaming about _you_ ,” she says, choked by more than just her hands. “About when we first met. Me and you, and Monkey. Do you remember?”

“Of course.” It was long time ago now, though, and it takes a moment to think back that far. “Of course I remember.”

“He had me like this—” She tightens her grip, enough that her voice distorts a little more. “And you saved my life. Stopped him before he could... before I...”

“I remember.” She frowns, still a little confused. “But that still sounds like a nightmare to me. I mean, you almost died.”

“Almost. But didn’t. Because there was _you_. And that...”

She stops, trailing off like she’s run out of words, but Tripitaka thinks she’s beginning to understand now. She moves in a little closer, careful and gentle, eases Sandy’s hands away from her throat, and—

Well. She doesn’t _quite_ replace them with her own. She understands, or at least she thinks she does, but she’s not sure she’s quite there yet.

Instead, a little more comfortably, she cups the back of her neck, lets her thumb rest against the point of her pulse. Holds her there for a little while, watches closely as Sandy’s eyes grow heavy, as her features grow slack and smooth and she relaxes into the touch.

“I think I see,” Tripitaka says, at last. “It’s a sort of... trust thing?”

“Mm. Sort of.” Her eyes slide shut, and her head falls forward slightly, trapping Tripitaka’s hand between her jaw and her neck. “Feels good, knowing you’re close. Knowing you’d never let anything happen while you could stop it.” She doesn’t open her eyes, but her breath hitches ever so slightly, punctuating the emotions of the moment. “I know you can’t always. You’re human. Limited, weak. But it doesn’t matter. Because you _would_.”

“We all would,” Tripitaka reminds her. “We’d all die for each other if we had to, any one of us. We’d all do anything to stop one of us from getting hurt. It’s been this way forever, surely you know that by now.”

“Mm, of course. But it’s important to remember.” Her eyes snap open, sharp and sudden; she sits up very straight and looks away, expression going blank, like a switch has been thrown inside her head. “I forget things so often, Tripitaka, and so easily. They fall out of my head and then they’re just... gone. Like your old home.”

That stings. Tripitaka feels her own breath stop, and it takes a long, long moment to get it back. “I see.”

“I thought you would.” She looks at her again, a little apologetic, like she knew the blow would hurt but didn’t know any other way to express herself. “So it’s important, you see? When I do remember things, I have to keep them close. Or I’ll lose them again.”

“I understand that. I do. But _this_...?”

And she gestures to Sandy’s throat, to the white-on-white prints left by her fingers.

“Yes, _this_.” She says it simply, but with passion. “How it felt. How _I_ felt. Being held like that, nearly dead but not. Pressure and pain and the lights behind my eyes. And then looking up, and seeing _you_. And knowing that you wouldn’t let it happen. Knowing that you...”

She can’t seem to bring herself to finish. Strangled, not by pressure on her throat this time but by something very different, by the rise and fall of her chest, the tears welling up again in her eyes, by emotions Tripitaka has only ever seen in her through fleeting moments and hazy nightmares.

Tripitaka wants so desperately to touch her, but she doesn’t. She stays where she is, gives Sandy the freedom to come to her if she wants contact, watches her throat convulse and feels her own start to tighten in sympathy.

“Comfort,” she whispers, devastatingly soft.

Sandy nods, swallows, nods again.

“You find it in pleasure and passion, things that make you feel solid. Being touched, being wanted. Maybe being worshipped a little bit, like Monkey does. You like to be reminded that you’re here, that we’re here with you, that we love you and want you. Like to be grounded, like to remember that the things you have are real.” She smiles, fragile and delicate. “I think I find it somewhere else. Maybe somewhere darker. Spent so long in the dark, I suppose it makes sense.”

“I guess it does,” Tripitaka says, soft but not really sure. “But I don’t think I’d call it ‘dark’ to want to hold your memories close.”

“No?” She doesn’t reach for her throat again but Tripitaka watches it clench, as though with anticipation. “Even like this?”

“Even like that.” She reaches out just a little, lets her fingertips brush the curve between shoulder and neck, achingly light and so, so gentle, then pulls away again. “If it makes you feel safe.”

“Does, yes.” She swallows a few more times, blinking rapidly. “I think that... _then_... I think it was the first time I felt that way. Dying but not. Your voice, protecting me. Caring. Stopping him before... before it could happen.” She seems almost on the brink of tears, just speaking about it. “And then you helped me up. After it was over. You helped me up, and your hands, your touch, your...”

“You were hurt,” Tripitaka points out softly. “He’d choked you half to death. Of course I helped you up. Of course I—”

“Of course. Obvious. To you, yes, but not to me.” She swallows again, choking a little as if in memory. “No-one had ever touched me like that before. By choice, I mean. Not since... not in such a long, long time. But you did it without a thought. You helped me up and you held me steady, and you...” She turns her head to the side, buries her face in Tripitaka’s shoulder as she starts to shake. “You _touched_ me, Tripitaka.”

And then she is crying, soundless and hidden, shuddering against her like that’s the only place in the world she feels safe enough to do so.

Tripitaka holds her close, blinking back tears of her own. Trying, anyway; she only manages it a moment before they overpower her, before she gives in and lets them fall. It’s a quiet, private exchange, more intimate in its own way than what they’ve just done, and the part of Tripitaka that isn’t weeping feels a deep, deep reverence for the moment, for what it means.

When it’s over, Sandy lifts her head and looks Tripitaka in the eye; hers are still trembling with tears, still ethereal and glowing and utterly breathtaking.

“I think you’re wrong,” she says.

Tripitaka snorts, laughing and sniffling at the same time. “It’s not completely unheard of. What am I wrong about this time?”

“You said I only cry when I’m young. When I dream of being young and lost and abandoned. But I think...” She takes a steadying breath, eyes wet and glowing in the firelight, and Tripitaka wants more than anything to lean in and kiss her lashes dry. “I think I cry when I have something I don’t want to lose.”

Tripitaka thinks about that for a long moment. About what it means for Sandy and for herself as well.

Sandy, who cried so much when she was a child, who cried until there was nothing left to cry, who cries again now when she dreams about it. And Tripitaka, the baby who was quiet and never cried, who grew up safe and protected and loved, who didn’t cry until she’d felt her youth sputter and die inside her, until she was older and wiser and understood how much pain there was in the world, how much to cry for.

“I think you might be right,” she whispers, hoarse and a little broken. “I think that might be true for both of us.”

Sandy looks at her, thoughtful and a little subdued. She’s not really sad, Tripitaka realises, for all the water still trembling behind her eyes, for all the salt-stains branded on her cheeks. She looks like she’s at peace, or at least closer to it than she was, like she’s found a kind of tranquility in understanding herself, in unlocking something that had been hidden for so long.

Tripitaka understands that too, though not as well as she’d like. It’s a slow, strange discovery, that tears don’t always mean grief or pain or loss, that they don’t always mean nightmares; they always have for her, for as long as she can remember. They mean waking and gasping, reaching out and scrabbling for solid ground, for the bodies and hearts of the gods she loves, the family and the life they’ve made together, the world that is hers and theirs. They mean reminding herself, as fiercely and with as much passion as she has in her, that it is all right to mourn the past and cherish the present at the same time.

She cries for the Scholar, for the men and women and gods she’s seen suffer and struggle and die, for the hard lessons she can’t unlearn, the pain she can’t unfeel. She cries for what _was_ , and then she takes hold of what _is_ and shows it, over and over and over, just how much it means to her. She cries for what she loved and she celebrates what she loves, and when it’s over she wipes away the tears and breathes and takes comfort in knowing she survived.

Sandy, as different in this as she is in everything, can only do one of those things at a time. Her memories are scattered and fractured and confused; she can’t hold on to the past and the present at the same time. So today she cries for what she has; tomorrow, or the next day, she’ll cry again for what she lost. 

Maybe one day her mind will be whole enough to build a bridge between the two, to feel both of those things in tandem. Not for the first time, Tripitaka wonders if it would be a blessing or a curse.

For now, though, content in the present, Sandy is tranquil and radiant, tearful but smiling. She looks down at Tripitaka with nothing but love in her eyes, warm despite the chill lingering on her skin.

“I think it’s beautiful,” she says. “Having something to cry for.”

Tripitaka breathes, wipes away the salt from her own face. “I think you’re right.”

“I didn’t have anything for the longest time. I’d lost my home, my family, and I was becoming something I didn’t understand. Lost and completely alone. Can you imagine?” It’s a rhetorical question, distant and hazy; Tripitaka doesn’t answer, just watches quietly as Sandy slides deeper and deeper inside her own thoughts. “I’d cried until there was nothing left inside me, no room for anything at all. And so I didn’t cry again for many, many years. Why would I? I had nothing to cry for. I had nothing and I was nothing and I...”

Despite herself, Tripitaka reaches for her hand, holds it hard and squeezes tight. “It’s okay.” 

The encouragement, gentle as it is, seems to bring her back to herself a little. She nods, takes a couple of deep breaths, then continues.

“It is, yes. Because then there was _you_. And you saved my life, and you touched me and you wanted me and you lo—” She stumbles. Tripitaka knows what she wants to say, just as she knows she still can’t bring herself to believe it’s true, of her and all of them. “And I remember now. How it feels to have something. What it’s like to to want and care for something... to _love_ something, so much that you cry just to think of losing it.”

She bows her head, as though in worship; Tripitaka can’t take her eyes off her. “You won’t,” she whispers. “You won’t lose us. You won’t lose anything. You won’t.”

“ _We_ won’t.” Her eyes are bright again when she lifts her head, glittering not with tears this time but with adoration. Tripitaka thinks she could drown in the way Sandy looks at her sometimes, thinks that the world could stop turning all around them and she wouldn’t even notice. “I know. But being afraid makes it more beautiful. Makes it mean more. And I think...” She bites her lip hard, looking very small, and finishes in a shy, quiet rush, “I think that brings me comfort.”

Tripitaka cups her face, lets her thumb brush the corner of her mouth, the mark she’s leaving with her teeth. “Good.”

And it is. And she is. And maybe they both are, in their own ways. Different, so very different, but still somehow feeling the same thing.

They sit there for a little while longer, comfortably silent, sharing fleeting touches and even more fleeting kisses, chasing away the shadows of dreams and wayward thoughts. Tripitaka wishes she could find comfort in fear and pain the way Sandy does, but she is content to find it in this instead, in quiet little moments of intimacy, in skin against skin and warm breath in her ear, in the tangible and the physical, in all the little details that tell her she is _here_ , and that _here_ is _home_.

It is late, inching its way towards early, when Sandy turns to her, smiling regretfully, and says, “You should get some sleep, Tripitaka.”

“I’m not tired.” It’s a little less impactful, she concedes, for the way it comes mid-yawn. “But I suppose I should.”

“Yes. You need to rest. It’s important.” She doesn’t mean it as an observation; it’s an offer too. “I’ll watch over you, if you like.”

“What about you?” She knows the answer, of course, but there is compassion in asking the question anyway, a reminder that she cares just as deeply. “Gods need sleep too. You don’t want to be exhausted tomorrow, do you?”

“Won’t be.” She says it with more certainty than she’s mustered all night, possibly all week, and it’s hard to guess which is the stronger motivation, the desire to watch over Tripitaka or the desire to hide from her own dreams. Nightmares or not, they’ve left a mark. “I think I’ve slept enough for one night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Not often. But sometimes.” It is so elusive, so typically Sandy, that Tripitaka can’t help laughing a little. “Yes, Tripitaka, I’m sure. I think I’d like to stay in the present for a while.”

Tripitaka understands that. She doesn’t have the fortitude of a god, the ability to stretch out the need for sleep for days and days, but she often wishes she did. Sometimes, after the worst sorts of nightmares, the ones that cut even closer than tonight, she would give anything to be able to stay awake all night, watching over her family and counting out the spaces between their breaths, finding comfort in seeing them at peace.

Not tonight, though. Sated and content as she is right now, she knows it would be futile to even try. Her eyelids are already starting to droop, her thoughts trickling away from her. She is sleepy, and not as afraid as she should be of what might be waiting for her on the other side, the dreams and memories she’s only just chased away. Less afraid because she has seen that look in Sandy’s eyes before, infatuated and so protective, and she knows that she is safe in her care.

Still, though, she lets herself be vulnerable for a moment. Lets her breath shudder in her chest and says, “You’ll wake me if I...?”

“Of course, Tripitaka. Always.” Her smile grows wry. “Though I may not have the stamina to ‘comfort’ you again.”

Tripitaka laughs again. It feels unspeakably good. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

She kisses her one last time, deep and heady enough for the taste to linger, the memory of it warm and sweet on her lips, her tongue. And she crawls back into her bedroll, warm and drowsy and calm, and then...

And then, silence.

Silence, except for the occasional hum of breathing, three gods and one human, three very different rhythms all wrapped around each other, rising and falling into a familiar lullaby. Silence, except for the breeze and the birds rustling in the trees above, the world carelessly going about its night, oblivious and unaware of the precious moments passing below.

Tripitaka lies awake for a time, gazing up at the stars, listening to the noises around her. Not the ones from above, the quiet chaos of life and nature and weather, but the ones a little closer to home. Pigsy’s sawblade snoring, deep and slow and even; it isn’t always that way, but it makes Tripitaka feel warm in the moments when it is. No nightmares for him tonight; from the look of his face, smooth and lineless, maybe no dreams at all.

None for Monkey, either. He’s the loudest of them all when he dreams, good or bad; Tripitaka has been jolted awake by both more times than she can count, each with a very different result. But tonight he is sleeping deeply as well, sprawled out flat on his back like the world isn’t hungry, like there’s nothing dangerous in it at all. It is such a rare thing in him, far more than any of the others, and Tripitaka drinks deep of the sight.

Everything quiet. Everything at peace and in perfect harmony. She so rarely feels that way after a nightmare, but the tranquility is so pervasive; it draws her in and pulls her under.

She doesn’t need to look up to see that Sandy is keeping her word, that she’s watching over her like a hawk, like a guardian; she can sense her presence as surely as if they were lying side-by-side. Her devotion, her compassion, all the little ways she would turn the world upside-down if she thought it would make Tripitaka happy. Once that devotion was a heavy weight to carry, a terrible burden for a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a monk; now, though, she can no longer count the times it’s dragged her back from the depths of despair.

 _Comfort_. In looking around and seeing the people she cares about, in listening to their breathing, the familiar song that she knows as well as her own heartbeat. In not looking around, too, in not needing to look to know what she’ll find, protection and strength and love, love, _love_.

Surrounded by all of that, it is so easy to give in and sleep. Easy to embrace it, even knowing what memories might be waiting for her there. Easy to face the lurking shadows when she can see and hear and feel the support she has from all sides.

None of them have needed to face anything alone in a very long time, and it is a gift beyond words to drift back to sleep with that truth wrapped around her. If she falls, no matter how deep or how far, there will always be someone to pull her back, to rescue her and take care of her and give her comfort.

So she closes her eyes. Drifts off to sleep, letting her breath catch the rhythm of Pigsy’s snoring, the rise and fall of Monkey’s chest, the warmth of Sandy’s presence, her quiet protection. Drifts off to sleep, warmed and comforted and surrounded by her friends, her lovers, her family.

Drifts off to sleep, unafraid of nightmares, unafraid of anything at all.

Unafraid, knowing that tonight she is _safe_.

***


End file.
